Chapter Eight
Fifteen minutes later, Inspector Beauvoir joined Gamache in the bookstore. As soon as Beauvoir walked through the door, Gamache handed him the book. The chief had on his half-moon reading glasses and looked at the inspector over them.
Beauvoir took the book, and Gamache went back to the computer screen on Myrna’s desk. Myrna herself was reading over the chief’s shoulder.
Inspector Beauvoir looked at the murder mystery in his hand. He was confused.
“Was it a copycat murder? Is the answer in here?” He held up the book. “Did this Barbara Fradkin kill Mr. Ellis?”
Once again, Gamache looked up, this time with a small smile. “I don’t think so, but that book certainly holds a clue. With Myrna’s help, I’ve found Arthur Ellis.”
Gamache got up and offered his seat to his second-in-command. Beauvoir sat and looked at the computer screen. On it was a black-and-white photo of a middle-aged man. It was taken in 1912. He had on round glasses, an old-fashioned hat, and a suit. He looked like a banker.
But he wasn’t.
He was Arthur Ellis.
As Inspector Beauvoir read, his breathing all but stopped. Finally, he sat back from the screen. He looked up at Chief Inspector Gamache and Myrna.
“What does it mean?” he asked, almost to himself. “It can’t be the same Arthur Ellis.”
That would make the man 150 years old. A zombie. A vampire. But not immortal.
For Arthur Ellis had just died. Hanged in the woods.
“It means,” said Gamache, leading the inspector into the bistro, “that we have a mystery on our hands.”
“No shit,” said Beauvoir.
Over a lunch of steak and fries, the two men discussed what they had found.
“So, Arthur Ellis killed people,” said Beauvoir, popping a salted fry into his mouth.
“He executed them,” Gamache corrected. “There is a fine line between the two. He was Canada’s official hangman.”
Beauvoir shook his head, remembering the photo of the mild-looking man. Had he really killed, executed, hundreds of men and women in the early 1900s? Hired by the Canadian government to hang them?
“Hell of a job.” Beauvoir wondered how that went down at dinner parties. Or on first dates.
“He came from a long line of executioners,” said the chief, taking a sip of beer. “Learned it from his father in England. His family had been hanging people for three hundred years.”
“Lucky us, to get him,” said Beauvoir.
“Arthur Ellis wasn’t his real name,” said Gamache. “He wanted to hide who he really was. He knew people hated and feared the executioner. They wanted someone to do the job, but they didn’t want to know that person.”
Beauvoir nodded. He’d read the story on the Web, just as the chief inspector had. He knew the rest. That after a long, successful career, Arthur Ellis had made a mistake.
A Terrible mistake.
He was to hang a woman in Montreal, in 1935. But he got her weight wrong, and instead of breaking her neck, the drop took her head off.
It was his last execution. He couldn’t do the job anymore. He died three years later in Montreal. A broken, lonely man.
The waiter took away their empty plates.
Beauvoir leaned forward. “How is it that Arthur Ellis was found hanging in the woods outside Three Pines this morning?”
That was the question.
The chief inspector put down his mug of beer. “I don’t know. The official hangman chose Arthur Ellis as an alias a hundred years ago. I think our dead man chose the same alias. He chose Arthur Ellis for a reason.”
Beauvoir looked into the deep, thoughtful eyes of his boss. And he knew Gamache was right.
“He was here to execute someone?” Beauvoir asked.
Gamache stood up, paid, and made for the door.
“I think so.”
They walked across the bridge to the old railway station, where Gamache’s team had set up an office. Phones were ringing, and urgent messages awaited both men.
Ten minutes later, Beauvoir pulled a chair up to the chief inspector’s desk. Gamache removed his reading glasses, finished his phone call, and looked at his inspector.
“Dr. Harris found bruises under the rope marks on the body,” said Gamache. “The man was strangled, probably by a belt. Then he was hanged. She’s confirmed it. Our man was murdered.”
“And I know who he was,” said Beauvoir. “His name was James Hill. Ontario’s motor vehicles branch confirmed it. We traced his licence plate.”
“Good. We’re getting there.”
For the rest of the afternoon, Inspector Beauvoir tracked down all the information he could on James Hill. Where he worked, lived. His family. His friends.
Chief Inspector Gamache went on his own hunt.
Myrna and Gabri had both said this James Hill had asked about young men in Three Pines. And a young man had appeared at the Bed and Breakfast the night before. Unexpectedly. At about the same time that James Hill was killed.
As the chief inspector crossed the village green, he could see geese in graceful formation overhead, flying south for the winter. But Gamache’s mind was elsewhere. On something not nearly so natural.
Who was James Hill here to execute? And who had got to him first?